Thursday, June 26, 2014

"Hearts on Fire" Randy Meisner
(1981) Original Eagle Meisner, the man who sang lead on "Take It to the Limit," charted all three of his solo Top 40 singles -- each of which deserves to be
revisited (click here and here for the other two) -- before former fellow bandmates Glenn Frey and Don Henley charted any of theirs. The week Eddie Rabbitt's
crossover-country classic "I Love a Rainy Night" was No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 for the second week, Meisner climbed from No. 23 to No. 21 with "Fire," his biggest hit. Incidentally, Rabbitt had scored a 1978 No. 2 hit with a different song, same title.

"Making Love" Roberta Flack (1982) When you're buried at the very end of a Top 40 solo career that includes such ageless evergreens as "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," "Killing Me Softly with His Song" and "Feel Like Makin' Love," it's hard not to decompose into a footnote. Had it been Oscar-nominated for Best Original Song, or had it not been the title song for a movie about the then-taboo subject of a married man (Michael Ontkean, wed to Charlie's Angel Kate Jackson) who has an affair with another man (Harry Hamlin, pre-L.A. Law), perhaps "Making Love" would have enjoyed a profile commensurate with its No. 13 Hot 100 peak. Perhaps Lauryn Hill would have covered it, too. Not that Burt Bacharach, who co-wrote it with his then-wife Carole Bayer Sager and Bruce Roberts, needed the royalties.

"You Should Hear How She Talks About You" Melissa Manchester
(1982) Mention the name Melissa Manchester, and anyone who knows her at all will likely remember a ballad: "Midnight Blue," "Through the Eyes of Love
(Theme from Ice Castles)," "Don't Cry Out Loud." But her biggest (and final) Top 40 single (No. 5) was actually a new-wave song that's nothing
like the adult-contemporary fare for which she became a mid-level pop star, and it won Manchester her only Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, against 100 percent uptempo competition (including Laura Branigan's "Gloria"!). For a song that couldn't possibly sound more '80s, it has aged pretty well.

"Can't Shake Loose" Agnetha Faltskog
(1983) Frida wasn't the only ABBA lady to go Top 40 in the U.S. in 1983 (with "I Know There's Something Going On," No. 14). Agnetha would make it No. 29 on
her own later that year, but modest success (compared to Frida's worldwide smash) wouldn't lead to longevity for the song. Interestingly, both Frida and
Agnetha enjoyed their lone solo Top 40 entries with songs written by Russ Ballard that veered closer to the dominant new-wave pop-rock sound of the time than to
ABBA's brand of soft Europop.

"Souls" Rick Springfield
(1983) I thought I knew every Rick Springfield Top 40 hit from 1981's "Jessie's Girl" to 1988's "Rock of Life" almost by heart until a few months ago when I came across an
old Billboard Top 40 list from 1983. I wondered, What's this song "Souls"? Then I YouTubed it and listened. It sounded vaguely familiar, but I still couldn't place it, as in attach it to a single memory from 1983. Where was I when the third hit from Living in Oz was climbing to No. 23? What kind of fool am I? Oops, wrong Springfield song that just
missed the Top 20!

"Don't Answer Me" The Alan Parsons Project
(1984) Before there was a-ha and the Norwegian trio's iconic 1985 video for "Take on Me," The Alan Parsons Project was revolutionizing MTV with its own
animated clip, the one for a No. 15 single that's now a sadly forgotten highlight from my favorite year in '80s music. (It doesn't even get its own Wikipedia entry!)

"Don't Shed a Tear" Paul Carrack
(1987) When you think of Paul Carrack (if you think of Paul Carrack), which song never pops into your head?

If you picked D, join the club. Attention, members! Carrack's only solo Top 10 sounds better than you don't remember, especially that I don't need… bit at the coda.

"Boys Night Out" Timothy B. Schmit
(1987) He may forever be best known as the guy who sang lead on Eagles' final Top 10 hit (1980's "I Can't Tell You Why"), but Schmit's facial expressions
in the video for his only solo Top 40 (No. 25 peak) makes me wish he'd done/had more. (Fun fact: When Schmit went Top 40 with "Boys Night Out," bringing
the number of solo Top 40 Eagles to five, Eagles surpassed both The Beatles and Duran Duran, each of which spawned four Top 40 spin-offs, among bands who
bore fruit and multiplied. That would make Eagles the U.S. Spice Girls, 10 years earlier.)

"Call It Love" Poco
(1989) Here's the confusing thing: Randy Meisner, who only appeared on Poco's 1969 debut album (and was fired before its release), and not Timothy B. Schmit, who replaced him in both Poco
and Eagles, was the one who reunited with Poco for its 1989 comeback. Schmit must have been still enjoying his boys night out.

"The Doctor" The Doobie Brothers
(1989) Here's a Top 10 trip (No. 9) that's all the more impressive because the band didn't need Michael McDonald to take it, which might actually be
precisely why you'd probably have to be a diehard fan to remember it.

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